Newbie requiring help...

You’re both right. TextEdit is the Teachtext of OSX. Tex-Edit Plus rocks. See below link for more on the later.

–tet

Is OS X’s TextEdit scriptable? I’m in 9 right now and don’t feel like booting over to find out.

I also recently acquired Tex-Edit Plus, at Andreas’ prompting.

It is, to my surprise. (I’m not sure why I thought it wasn’t–did it not used to be?)
Anyway, check out the below link for some examples.

–tet

In the interests of truth and justice I just want to add that I was introduced, and not all that long ago, to Tex-Edit Plus by Marc Myers, who uses it beautifully in some of his own scripts.